Hello I need help! I want to go into either child advocacy law or criminal law and I want to know if anyone knows of any good schools with great programs for either of these majors?

1. There are no "majors" in law school. Just a JD.

2. Any school will teach you enough to go into child advocacy law or criminal law.

3. Do not believe the self-rankings of schools regarding their programs; with a very few exceptions (such as tax law, which you need an LLM for anyway) it doesn't matter at all. Certainly not for those areas.

4. Go to the school the you like, that is the least expensive, in the geographic area that you believe you will practice.

Finally, good luck. Those are two fields that I could never practice in. It's not the law - it's the facts, if you know what I mean.

Hello I need help! I want to go into either child advocacy law or criminal law and I want to know if anyone knows of any good schools with great programs for either of these majors?

1. There are no "majors" in law school. Just a JD.

2. Any school will teach you enough to go into child advocacy law or criminal law.

3. Do not believe the self-rankings of schools regarding their programs; with a very few exceptions (such as tax law, which you need an LLM for anyway) it doesn't matter at all. Certainly not for those areas.

4. Go to the school the you like, that is the least expensive, in the geographic area that you believe you will practice.

Finally, good luck. Those are two fields that I could never practice in. It's not the law - it's the facts, if you know what I mean.

Not true, MANY have majors as options, and without question concentrations on the rest, and different quality of clinics for options (if any at all in those specific areas)

Not true, MANY have majors as options, and without question concentrations on the rest, and different quality of clinics for options (if any at all in those specific areas)

Muahahahaha!

Many law schools have "majors" as options? Really?

So, when I'm on the hiring committee, and someone tells me that they received a JD with a major in corporate law* ... do you think I'm going to laugh, or just toss the applicant's file?

So, moving on from that foolishness (you get a Doctorate in Jurisprudence, not a Bachelor of Science/Arts with a major), let's address your other incorrect points.

Do schools offer concentrations / certificates / gold stars? Of course they do! After all, they need things to put in brochures for impressionable 0Ls. You know, the kind that think, "I wanna be an international lawyer!" Allow me to rank the value of these concentrations / certificates / gold stars in the real world (assuming you haven't been practicing for a while, in which case, who cares what you did in school?)-1. Class Rank/School.2. Law review/ Moot court.3. Trial Team4. Jobs / Positions taken during 1L and 2L summers5. RA to Professor, other academic work.6. Secondary journal.7. Cool facts about the person, like their middle name.....38. Concentration.

I kid, but only slightly. Because these "certificates" and "concentrations" have no more validity than what the school says they have. They are just another thing to on your resume - nothing more, nothing less. And they are almost all a big joke.

Do some schools have better clinics? Sure. Can I think of a school that doesn't offer clinics in criminal law? No. Is this something that someone will easily find out, as opposed to every single school saying they offer "amazing clinics, with hand-on ability to work with actual clients and practitioners!" Nope. Isn't it true that only a small percentage of the student body will usually take advantage of the amazing opportunities, while the vast majority won't- yep (and can you blame some of them- if you're going into transaction work, why the heck do you need a litigation clinic)?

Finally, let's look at the request. Even assuming you weren't wrong (which is difficult, but we're analyzing a hypothetical here), the specific question was directed toward criminal law and child advocacy law. Now, I respect people that can practice in those fields. And while "child advocacy law" is somewhat ill-defined for purposes of the question, family law and criminal law as fields are the two easiest areas to break into, if that's what someone would like to do. I'm not saying that all areas of each are equally easy to get into- the difference between federal prosecution and state public defense is ... not small.

Anyway, to sum up- please don't believe the crud law schools are shoveling at you.

*Except someone with that lack of knowledge wouldn't say corporate law, they'd say M&A, because of course they would.

The whole "We offer a certificate in Water Law" or whatever, typically means that the school offers two or three classes and (maybe) the possibility of an internship.

I suppose if you wanted to go into child advocacy and took the extra classes offered in juvenile dependency, or whatever they offer, that's certainly not going to hurt you. At the same time, it's not a big deal. An internship with an agency/firm that handles these cases would be much more helpful.

As far as criminal law, go ahead and take trial advocacy and make sure to get an internship with the DA or public defender. That's what you really need.

OP:I don't know of any specific schools that offer special programs in crim law of child advocacy, but you can take such classes at any law school. The main thing is to make connections in the community in which you intend to work. Both of those fields are heavily govt dominated (DA, PD, County Counsel, etc). Get into a school that has a good local rep, and get an internship.